Patience Wheatcroft
David Aaronvitch heads off to a more natural home at the Times, and describes his new colleagues as "gorgeous animals as Matthew Parris, Anatole Kaletsky and Patience Wheatcroft." Will it improve his accuracy?One fears not. Whatever Patience Wheatcroft may be, it's not good at reading a report correctly. Here's how she describes the IFS's report today:
A cut of 0.2 per cent in disposable income might not feel too painful to the average family* but the real hit is much harder. The Government is only measuring household income but there are some household outgoings over which people have little control and almost all those demands have been rising. Taking account of increases in council tax and utility bills, the average family is finding that the money it can spend in the shops, or on a holiday or a night on the town, is down by very much more than 0.2 per cent.
Here's what the IFS says on p.15 of the report:
Weekly Earnings
Actual £408 (–0.2%)
Before income tax and NI rises £412 (0.7%)
Before income tax, NI and council tax rises £413 (0.9%)
In other words the 0.2% includes council tax payments increases. Without them mean income would be flat.
* It's also nonsense to say the 'average family' saw a 0.2% cut. Those in the bottom four quintiles of the income distribution saw their incomes rise. Only those in the top fifth saw it fall. No-one in the real world would say an 'average' family was to be found in the top fifth.
posted by Matthew @ 3/31/2005 08:49:00 PM
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